Ex-Uber employees are being surprised by big tax bills - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ex-uber-employees-are-being-surprised-big-tax-bills-they-n1233699 <comment><USER2> This story completely misses what the lawsuit is actually about. It isn't just a bunch of employees who are pissed that the stock went down.

Employees' RSU agreements stated that Uber would deliver their shares 6 months post-IPO. A few days before the IPO Uber decided to amend the agreement and accelerate the vesting, so shares would be available on IPO day itself.

Why did they do this? Uber is legally required to withhold taxes during a vesting event. The most common way to do this is to sell a percentage of the shares immediately on vest. This, however, increases the total number of shares in the market and depresses the stock price. To avoid this, Uber decided to pay for the taxes out of their own pocket and claim a percentage of the shares for themselves (basically a private stock buyback).

By moving the vest date up, Uber gambled on the fact that the stock price would be higher in 6 months, and the move would thus benefit both themselves (less out of pocket spend for withholding) and the employees (difference taxed as capital gains rather than regular income). Instead the opposite happened and both parties lost out. More importantly Uber reduced their own risk by locking down their total liability at the IPO date itself and exposed their employees to the whims of market fluctuations.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. The article initially read as if people had held their stock as if it was an investment and are mad they didn't sell to cover the tax bill sooner. After your explanation it is much clearer.

tl;dr Uber accelerated vesting of employee grants so that they happened during the lockout period. Also they could have proactively taken more out to cover taxes for the employee but chose instead to take the minimum out.

<comment><USER2> > Also they could have proactively taken more out to cover taxes for the > employee but chose instead to take the minimum out.

They didn't do this for the same reason - they were paying for the withheld taxes themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems... spurious. Granting IPO stocks on IPO day is beneficial if the stock goes up, and "detrimental" if the stock goes down from the initial price instead, which is what happened with Uber.

The article makes it look like Uber tried to short change employees, but if the stock had rocketed up, they would have saved employees a ton of money in taxes because the gain from IPO price to the price when the lock-up expired would have been taxed as capital gains.

They also make it looks like these people are all making pennies because the stock didn't do well, which we all know is obviously not the case (especially if they are engineers).

Side note: when people bash ISOs because they are evil or something, I just think of tax implications like this. This wouldn't happen if they were options instead of RSUs.

<comment><USER5> Did anyone really think the stock was going to rocket up?

<comment><USER6> Yes, everyone who went long on the day of the IPO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Suppose you're at Uber, got your shares on IPO date (May 9) and sold 6 months later (~Nov 9), wouldn't the tax shenanigans be a wash for you? You were taxed when they vested, so the new cost basis would be the IPO price, and you'd get to claim a loss when you sold?

It's a little different if you held into 2020, though. Then you'd be on the hook for the higher taxes, but again, you should still be able to eventually claim the loss, so as long as you're in the same tax bracket, it'd be OK.

<comment><USER2> > You were taxed when they vested

You were taxed the minimum amount (37%) when they vested, but likely need to pay a lot more than that yourself.

<comment><USER8> Where did 37% come from? It would usually be around 22%-24% and whatever your state tax rate is.

<comment><USER7> 37% is the highest federal marginal tax rate. It starts at $510,301, which might kick in for a decent number of Uber shareholders at IPO.

That's also the tax rate, not the withholding rate.

I have no idea what they meant by "but likely need to pay a lot more than that yourself," unless that was a reference to state income tax. 37% is the highest bracket. It's higher than AMT. I'm not sure under what circumstances you'd owe more than 37%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lawsuit at [https://uberrsuclaims.gallo.law](https://uberrsuclaims.gallo.law)

<comment><USER5> Is there any downside to joining that lawsuit if you qualify?

<comment><USER7> It's a class action, so it depends if it's opt-out or opt-in. If it's opt-out, you'll be in the class by not taking any action. The downside to class actions is usually that you can't sue on your own. You might also disagree with the merits of the case, so there could be an ethical concern on your end. You also might not like how much your lawyer is getting paid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You have to read to paragraph #17 before you get the information the story is really about.

 _Uber delivered shares to its employees on the day of its IPO in May 2019, meaning employees would be taxed at the price of $45 a share. But the employees were restricted from selling their shares for six months, by which point the price had fallen to around $27 a share._

This definitely sucks for the employees. But it isn't really clear that Uber did anything wrong. In cases where there's an IPO pop, and employees want to hold on to the stock for a while, this can be good for employees, because more of their income happens via capital gains.

To me, the real lesson is that our tax code is stupid, because it treats "a share of stock that you are given on day X, but may not sell until day X+180" and "a share of stock that you are given on day X+180" in different ways, even though they seem exactly the same to the employee.

<comment><USER8> Why is that stupid? I own the stock on day X (and ignoring the lock in period), it's part if my compensation that I could sell and by any other stock.

<comment><USER11> > Why is that stupid? I own the stock on day X (and ignoring the lock in > period), it's part if my compensation that I could sell and by any other > stock.

He means that if I offered you stock with a 6 month lockup, or a stock with no lockup, you would prefer the second, and value it much higher.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> are you allowed to short the stock during the period when you are not allowed to sell the RSU's? In other words, is it possible to create a liability (the short position) that exactly offsets your asset (the RSU's that are 'delivered' but that you can't sell)?

<comment><USER13> You create a short position by selling borrowed shares.</comment></comment>


NPM package is-windows is a one line function but used by 2.5M repos - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/caspervonb/status/1139947676546453504 <comment><USER2> It's laughable, but actually I've been in the exact situation to prevent a published app from running on Windows, because the app makes specific assumptions wrt shared read/write file access and locking semantics, composing file names, and spawning shell scripts as child processes. So I guess widepread use of is-windows comes from wanting a commonly understood pattern to block running on Windows, not having tested your app on Windows, etc. What's best practice to follow here?

<comment><USER3> The best practice is (or should be) to develop separate, optimized apps for each system you want to target, and to not build or offer a Windows version if you don't want to support Windows.

OR, since this is just an expression in a single line function, just write it yourself and don't include it as a dependency.

<comment><USER2> Yes but how to tell npm your app doesn't run on Windows? Checking for win32 or other well-known Win-specific "process" property in your "build" npm script, and make it fail if it hasn't any of the expected valued? I'm guessing is- windows is idiomatically used for this exact purpose, and people not wanting to hard-code a heuristic for detecting Windows in their app. But then, I'm not sure third-party packages are available during execution of "build". The last time I had to deal with this, it didn't work out as I intended, and I ran out of time to find a robust, generally used idiom for this.</comment></comment></comment>


Smoking the cloud: What is really cloud computing? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.milkingthegnu.org/2008/05/google-defend-y.html

<comment><USER2> I have read some good definitions[1] of cloud computing from Joyent.

[1][http://www.joyeur.com/2008/05/08/cloud-nine-specification- fo...](http://www.joyeur.com/2008/05/08/cloud-nine-specification-for-a-cloud- computer-a-call-to-action)</comment>


With Prism Cooperation, Tech Giants Look Weak - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-17/with-prism-cooperation-tech-giants-look-weak <comment><USER3> I am also disappointed by the tech giants behavior, but not primarily for PRISM.

Yes, they shouldn't give the data that willingly, but what I see as much more troubling is the agencies ability to tap into the net's full flow of communications ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A), etc.)

I simply don't believe that the Big Techs weren't aware of this. And here lies the biggest hypocrisy of their: that those companies, especially Google and Facebook, instead of warning us that our privacy is being slowly stolen from us, went the opposite route and encouraged us to share even more of our personal data, which now all ended in we-don't-know-in-how-many data centers belonging to various governments.

<comment><USER4> There are huge penalties for saying no, contractually, etc. Just look at the Gibson guitar raids. Also wasn't YAHOO one that did say no and still they were strong armed? I mean, it is the gov. that has the real teeth here (real weapons, regulation rulings etc., not patents).

<comment><USER5> For some of the tech companies, yes. But I imagine that even the US government would have some significant day-to-day challenges if Google were not available to it's employees (State or Federal).

That has to provide some leverage when dealing with situations that you should not be comfortable with.

<comment><USER6> > But I imagine that even the US government would have some significant day- > to-day challenges if Google were not available to it's employees (State or > Federal).

Oh, you have _no_ idea. Even in the DoD Google is a required element of much of what I do on some weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Google especially tends to give in pretty easily to these outside pressures. Look what they've done for MPAA/RIAA over the years. They've automated the DMCA process for them for both Google search and Youtube, even though they weren't compelled to do so.

I bet they also believe they've washed their hands off this because they "report" these DMCA takedowns. Yeah, _thanks_ Google - for creating an automated censorship system that no Court or law asked you to create.

<comment><USER8> A DMCA takedown request isn't talking about a URL -- it's talking about content. Google is likely saving themselves lifetimes of human effort (and the associated salaries) that would have to go into manual screening. I imagine content ID is necessary for YouTube to exist sustainably -- not a gift to RIAA/MPAA.

<comment><USER9> A DMCA takedown request requires "Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material." Generally, this means that the company submitting the takedown provides a specific list of URLs with infringing content. They can't just say "videos infringing on x exist on your site, go find them", and the safe harbor provision of the DMCA means that Google isn't responsible for hunting down infringement on their own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Under our system of laws, the corporations own this data, and they can do what they please. Sell or give it away to the NSA? Well, why not?

Even if the FISA court is eliminated (fat chance), it will not change much in the long haul. "Cooperation" will be encouraged by many legal means.

We should not expect that _corporate-owned property_ will be used in a way that we are all happy and hunky-dory about. If we do not like that, _change the law_ s.

<comment><USER11> >they can do what they please. Sell or give it away to the NSA? Well, why not?

Exactly. The can do whatever they please. They have the power to tell the NSA to take a hike. And that power makes them look strong in the eyes of their customers.

And that strong action is not the one they took. They had the power to do whatever they pleased with their data that their customers gave them, and they _chose_ to hand it to the government. And that makes them look weak.

This is a perception issue that is not directly (but is certainly indirectly) tied to a bottom line. Sure, they government will give them some cash - <USER2> sure they'd fire up a few lawsuits if the companies refused to cooperate. But all of that is chump change compared to revenue from 'all non-US customers'.

<comment><USER3> Actually, I am still waiting for Google and other companies to offer us some real explanation.

What could have happened? Maybe they didn't expect it will be whistle-blowed, maybe they realized that the NSA is so technologically strong that making such obstructions doesn't really matter, or they were receiving other benefits for cooperating, who knows? ...but I think it will be clearer after a few more Guardian articles. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _Finally, on Friday, the New York Times reported[1]—using some conveniently > leaked documents—that Yahoo had tried to resist the NSA's attempts to compel > it to provide user data but was ultimately unsuccessful and was ordered by > the court to comply._

> _These companies may have convinced themselves that cooperation was > inevitable, or that they needed to do something to help the government catch > terrorists, or that by automating the legally legitimate FISA process they > could save themselves a lot of trouble and expense, or some combination of > all the above. But in reality, they have not only shown themselves to be > weak—which will encourage the NSA to pressure them even further because it > knows it can win—but also fundamentally untrustworthy, and that could cause > them a lot more problems with users than they ever contemplated._

Who is voting up this nonsense? Since when is losing in court equivalent to rolling over for the NSA? Not only does the author refer to the "the legally legitimate FISA process" multiple times (apparently the government is absolved from blame here), he also writes multiple times that we has no idea what PRISM actually is. But why not jump to conclusions anyway!

> _So far, the only company that seems to have emerged unscathed is Twitter, > which reportedly fought the government's attempts to enrol the company in > the Prism program and succeeded, a tale that has burnished Twitter's claim > to be the "free-speech wing of the free-speech party."_

Except that Twitter has agreed with Google in saying that companies should be allowed to disclose ranges of FISA requests separate from other requests, rather than lumping all requests (federal and local) together[2]. It's not a slam dunk, but it strongly implies that, regardless of what PRISM is, Twitter has received and complied with FISA orders.

This article seems like the author said, "We still don't know what PRSIM is, but I have a deadline, so let's see what I can bang out in 5 minutes." Not only are there no new facts, what speculation is here doesn't even seem well thought through.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/technology/secret-court- ru...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/technology/secret-court-ruling-put- tech-companies-in-data-bind.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

[2] [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/google-calls-u-s- da...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/google-calls-u-s-data-request- disclosures-a-step-backward-for-users/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Non-mobile version for you desktop users out there - [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-17/with- prism-c...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-17/with-prism- cooperation-tech-giants-look-weak)</comment>


Elon Musk actually believes Tillerson could be an "excellent" Secretary of State - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/24/elon-musk-actually-believes-rex-tillerson-could-be-an-excellent-secretary-of-state/?sr_share=facebook <comment><USER2> So far I haven't seen a strong explanation about why he wouldn't be. There is much to hate about Trump—I in particular worry about the way he raises the risks of global nuclear war: [https://jakeseliger.com/2016/11/28/trump-fears- and-the-nucle...](https://jakeseliger.com/2016/11/28/trump-fears-and-the- nuclear-apocalypse) —but it seems unwise to automatically oppose anyone he proposes for his Cabinet.

It is also not impossible that he will appoint a good FDA commissioner: [http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/wil...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/will- trump-appoint-great-fda-commissioner.html).

One should reserve opprobrium for where it is deserved and not fire it off generically, especially based on innuendo. Again, that is not to approve ([https://jakeseliger.com/2016/10/10/vote-for-clinton-or- johns...](https://jakeseliger.com/2016/10/10/vote-for-clinton-or-johnson-for- president/)), but it should contextualize the discussion. As far as I can tell, Tillerson _could_ be an excellent Secretary of State. He _could_ also be a terrible one.

<comment><USER3> There's also other dimensions; he might be a very effective Secretary of State that does things that lots of people disagree with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Tillerson is really smart. I don't see a problem with this unless you're a super-hater on Exxon.

<comment><USER5> .. or if you're a super-hater of conflicts of interests

.. or if you're a super-hater of those who downplay global warming

<comment><USER4> During his confirmation hearings, he explicitly said he believed that climate change exists, and that humans have a contribution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I watched his hearing and was really expecting to dislike the guy. He actually sounded very reasonable and had well thought out answers to each question. Whether he can truly avoid any conflict of interest has yet to be seen. He is definitely a bit suspect given his previous position.

<comment><USER5> The conflict of interests is my concern as well. We didn't get a clear picture of how he would avoid a conflict if it were between Exon & Russia vs USA. Though I did appreciate the fact that he did disclose his finances to the ethics review unlike many of the other nominees. Maybe he will be like Tom Wheeler, but I wouldn't hold my breathe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's with the "actually" in the title?</comment>


Ask HN: My cofounder is freaking out about getting sued. - <AUTHOR>

I have a serious problem with my co-founder and I'm not sure how to handle it. We just launched a more complete version {1} of the popular Yo App and we are getting lots of downloads. But now, he is freaking out about getting sued for using a similar name and layout as the Yo app. Mostly he is worried about having Yo in the app title, which I don't see any problem with. However, now he changed the app title in our play store account a second time without telling me so in response, I blocked his access.
His main argument for not using Yo in our name, is that we shouldn't be gaining traction from what others have built. However, I think tries to make up arguments why we should change the name. Also, in my opinion our app is significantly different to Yo and he is simply getting worked up about us getting sued for copyright infringement or intellectual property theft.
Moreover, having yo in the name is crucial for our app to gain traction as it communicates to people that they can do "one-word" communication to their friends similar to Yo, just in a bit of a different way.
I think my question is, is there any way we could get sued realistically? The thing is that we're in German jurisdiction, so there is not much anyone can sue us about outside of Germany and if it goes through, it would take a year or so, wouldn't it?
{1} https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.messenger.labs <comment><USER2> IANAL, but I would tend to agree with your co-founder.

First, you openly admit that you are using the "Yo" brand name to drive adoption to your app: "having yo in the name is crucial for our app to gain traction".

Second, you market it as a "more complete version" of the Yo app.

Third, just because you are in a different country than Yo, doesn't mean that they still can't/won't try to sue you. They just got a fresh round of funding, obviously have bigger plans for the brand, and as such will probably want to squash out someone infringing on their brand quickly, especially one that is marketing and branding to solely based on their brand. Just bringing the lawsuit will cost you money that you probably don't have and will easily put you in debt without the case even getting to a court room.

Fourth, the name "Yo Messenger" makes it sound like a different product under the Yo brand thus causing easy confusion with consumers and I am sure any court would probably see similar. By your logic if back when Facebook was just getting started if I had launched an app called "Facebook Messenger" then that would not be infringing on the Facebook brand.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would think the first sign would be a cease and desist / Abmahnung

Yo or more specifically Yo! has been trademarked in many countries since the mid-90's as part of the Yo! Sushi brand.

It depends on what you are building towards. Are you getting revenue from the app? If you were to have to pull the app from the store is that your whole business gone?

</comment><comment><USER4> Call it "Hey".

</comment><comment><USER5> call it wazzup

<comment><USER6> Dude!</comment></comment>


Attackers target unpatched PHP bug allowing malicious code execution - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/05/attackers-target-unpatched-php-bug-allowing-malicious-code-execution.ars

<comment><USER2> Because this only affects PHP running in CGI mode, it should really only affect out-of-date systems. By default with Apache 2, PHP is run by the Apache 2 Handler (which isn't vulnerable). Even before that, mod_php has been standard for quite a while.</comment>


Killing ants with nuclear weapons - <AUTHOR> https://drewdevault.com/2017/09/08/Complicated.html <comment><USER3> As an old-ish guy who doesn't like people on my lawn, I agree with the sentiment.

A big struggle when balancing how to use the knowledge gained over decades of experience in today's context is trying to figure out which tools are needlessly complex and which bring real value to the table. What are the tradeoffs?

Makefiles aren't the glimmering beacon of simplicity I would lean on for an example but sure, they're less byzantine than webpack but you have to learn the syntax and other foibles along the way. Hell I used CMake back in the day when I was working on a big Lua/C/C++ app so that gives you an idea of my feels toward Make.

Far more common is the knee-jerk reflex to import a library for every damned thing. For stuff like a graphics library or mapping? Sure. Library for a data structure? Maybe? How much customization are you expecting to do to it? Will it work out of the box? Library for plumbing, like auto generating Redux action creators? Please don't do that. You're importing something that can probably be generalized for your case with a 10 line function.

<comment><USER4> I agree and I'll single out npm.

It's a great tool but it must be used with event greater care. You can `npm install` a package and get dozens of packages requiring packages. Before you know it your little app has 100's of dependencies.

On the flip side, I use `npm run` instead of writing simple bash scripts. Why? Because everyone I work with runs lots of things this way. Doing so ensure's they'll know where to look for all the stuff they might be able to run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This reads way too much as a "get out of my lawn" post, where old complexity is good, but replacing it with newer complexity is bad.

Yet, I am asking myself if Puppet has ever saved me more time than it spent. It would help if it was stable, but it keeps changing, and outdating my rules.

I would say it has better maintainability than scripts over ssh, mostly because error handling is implicit and things are descriptive. But I would take not having to maintain the rules over maintainability at any day.

<comment><USER6> I think Puppet makes for an interesting example.

Having spent the last decade of my life mired in config management systems from CFEngine to Ansible, it seems like the pattern is for a complex system to be replaced with a "simple" system, the "simple" system quickly gains complexity, and then we see a shift back to a simple alternative.

I'm starting to strongly suspect the root of the problem (at least within this context of config mgmt systems) is that everyone wants to write libraries, nobody wants to write a config.

By this, I mean if a Puppet user wants to install and a simple single site, instead of a simple manifest or internal cookbook with just a package resource and template, they frequently reach for a Apache module from the forge. Similarly, if an Apache module doesn't exist in the forge, they will try to publish one. This results in vast dependency graphs of questionably maintained modules, and new users to the ecosystem saying "Wow, this is way too complex. Oh hey, Chef looks simple." A short while later you get the Supermarket, and the cycle continues.

I'd argue centralized repositories of config management modules/cookbooks lead to the decline of any given config management system, and the best way to avoid that is to use a real config management system (chef/puppet/whatever), but stick to the basic resources, and avoid 3rd party modules at all costs -- they will _quickly_ go unmaintained. And seriously, do you think you'll need to deal with that obscure setting for apache on irix that the popular community module supports?

<comment><USER5> I do avoid 3rd party modules. Not at all costs, but enough for them being less of a problem than the puppet updates themselves. Not to talk about how it got from a simple "write your configurations here" repository into something that requires that you think about testing and staging envs for your configs. I am still not sure if that's a net positive either.

There is an inherent problem on the complexity itself. The previous piles of scripts I had before it had the complexity right there, on your face. They were clearly hard to manage, but it was bounded. By using Puppet I exchanged that for a lot of hidden complexity, that is ever increasing and once in a while shows its face (always on a bad time).

Or, rephrasing the rant, why does software have to keep growing? If it didn't I could evaluate what is a good trade-off and keep it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree with the sentiment of this post and have felt this pain. Interestingly I find that notation and syntax are the first, and most powerful, justification for the new tools. Honest to god blockers to adoption I've witnessed:

1\. Makefiles and/or bash scripts are not written in javascript

2\. Man pages are not web based

3\. The dense syntax of command line tool options is intimidating

I also have a strong sympathy with the position that UX matters at all levels of tool building and its hard to argue that older tools are as approachable, literate, or aesthetically appealing as newer tools.

The real tragedy is that it is so difficult to update the UX, syntax and aesthetics of older tools while maintaining the hard-won stability and separation of concerns they embody.

<comment><USER8> > _Makefiles and /or bash scripts are not written in javascript_

Why should you rewrite all that stuff every time there's a new fashion out there?

By the same token, a rewrite would have been required when Perl was all the rage, or Python.

> _The dense syntax of command line tool options is intimidating_

Anything you don't understand very well can be intimidating.

<comment><USER9> Makefile was not originally designed to be a general-purpose language but eventually grew features and pretends to be one. If a proper general-purpose language with a well-designed library (possibly plus a general-purpose data- only configuration language) is capable of performing the core function of an "interpreted DSL", even at some cost of terseness, I would strongly prefer it to the DSL. While having multiple libraries in different languages might contribute to fragmentation, being able to write the build scripts in the same language as the rest of your project provides value.

> > The dense syntax of command line tool options is intimidating

> Anything you don't understand very well can be intimidating.

IMHO what's intimidating is not the CLI itself, but possibly:

1\. lack of consistent convention between different tools (only PowerShell attempted to address this)

2\. poor discoverability of options, which is often exacerbated by poor quality of documentation

3\. naming of things (which is getting better with more modern CLI tools)

4\. ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _> We have heaps and heaps of complicated, fragile abstractions to dismantle_

Nobody has time to dismantle the complicated, fragile abstractions because they're too busy building new complicated, fragile abstractions to layer on top of the old ones.

</comment><comment><USER11> > _When I look at a tool like Gulp, I wonder if its success is largely > attributable to people not bothering to learn how Makefiles work._

> _This complexity cost shows itself when the system breaks (and it will - <USER2> > systems break) and you have to dive into these overengineered tools. Don't > forget that dependencies are fallible, and never add a dependency you > wouldn't feel comfortable debugging._

I don't have _a lot_ of experience with Makefiles, but I refuse to believe that they're being cited as an example of something that's _not_ complex.

It seems like this blog post is basically the author saying, "I understand how Makefiles work, but don't understand how Gulp works", and extrapolating that everyone else shares his skillset.

<comment><USER12> They are something that can be complicated, but don't have to be.

Gulp and Grunt and Webpack or whatever the new hot shit is, usually isn't used for anything _that_ complex. Grab some files, pipe them through a tool or series of tools, write the output to a destination. This is exactly what Make was built for.

<comment><USER11> Is Gulp itself complex? If it's just a series of steps, does it really matter whether you're using Make or Gulp? The author knows Make, so it's easier for him to debug it. Someone else might know Javascript, so it's easier for them to debug Gulp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >When I look at a tool like Gulp, I wonder if its success is largely attributable to people not bothering to learn how Makefiles work

I have. And then I learned that I also need autoconf/automake/m4 (which the author is not mentioning). So there is complexity already out there (even for makefiles)

>server applications ship entire operating systems in glorified chroots;

If this is about Docker, I don't think that the author truly knows how Docker works.

<comment><USER14> >And then I learned that I also need autoconf/automake/m4

Make is well on its own, especially for everything that is not portable C.

>server applications ship entire operating systems in glorified chroots;

\- Docker containers are running chroot'ed

\- Containers still do have an whole POSIX-ly userland with shell and coreutils. You can extract every container onto an disk and make an static linux kernel boot it.

<comment><USER15>
       - Containers still do have an whole POSIX-ly userland with shell and coreutils.
         You can extract every container onto an disk and make an static linux kernel boot it.

What's in a docker image is entirely up to the image creator. Docker containers don't necessarily have to use a complete userland + init system as a base.

<comment><USER14> In practice, containers do have a shell, since a few things (Dockerfile RUN & CMD in non-exec mode, environment variable substitution, docker exec shell) dont work without it.

<comment><USER16> But you don't have to have all that, you can have just a single executable in the container, like here for example: [https://github.com/containous/traefik- library-image/blob/f24...](https://github.com/containous/traefik-library- image/blob/f24cd6a1a31933c76ab397868b5da84d43f5d2ff/scratch/amd64/Dockerfile)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's a reason that build tools show up in every language that exists: it turns out that it's easier to build a project using the target language than using a generic tool.

Consider that gradle, ant, and maven all call java internally rather than externally, allowing build paths to be set up in other ways than string manipulation.

Consider that javascript build tools use internal tools. What value is there in creating string abstractions or intermediate json manipulation when we can pass these from function to function instead?

Now, for cross-language projects, makefiles can be useful glue.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think one of the big benefits of these tools is providing common knowledge between developers. It is a huge headache for a new developer to walk into a project where someone is building their own solutions or using uncommon tools.

If you want to find someone who can walk into your project and start updating/debugging the gulpfile or dockerfile on day one, that is completely doable.

</comment><comment><USER19> At first glance i read the title as: Killer ants with nuclear weapons.

<comment><USER20> They came from outer space!

/Red_alert

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> All I am reading here is a complacency with the way this person was taught. I have no problem adapting to the new tech and welcome the abstraction. I trust the communities and maintainers of such abstractions to help me when the time arises.

</comment><comment><USER20> Challenge accepted.</comment>


Tesla has only produced 260 Model 3s so far - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/02/tesla-produced-260-model-3s/ <comment><USER2> My brother currently owns a Model S which isn't a bad car by any means, but from what I've seen, it has gone through a terrible QA by Tesla (door panels not placed perfectly, shoddy mechanical door handle breaking, forgetting to re-enable a door after servicing). Considering Tesla is already running into production issues, I hate to see what QA issues the Model 3 will run into.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tesla has missed on pretty much all of their goals, but this is a big one. They had predicted production of 1,500 units.

If they want to enter the low cost commodity vehicle business they will have to get a lot better at executing.

</comment><comment><USER4> I saw a Model 3 'in the wild' here in Chicago 2 days ago - did not realize it was one of only 220 made so far though!</comment>


Sshguard protects networked hosts from brute force attacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.sshguard.net/ <comment><USER2> So does disabling password auth and using real keys.

My only experience with sshguard is via Google Cloud Platform. For some reason they enable it by default. Thus it locked me out somehow, making me spend an extra few hours wondering why SSH stopped working.

If you're that upset about auth logs, put SSH on another port.

<comment><USER3> The big win for me is that it cuts down log noise from ssh brute force attempts. Used with pf/netfilter you get even less. I'm not sure of getting FreeBSD nightly security reports that freeze a mail client for a few seconds as they render and sshguard cuts that down to a manageable block message.

<comment><USER2> So don't log those things or especially don't email them? They're obviously not providing useful or actionable information. Just seems like the hassle of getting locked out far outweighs the reduction in a log you're not really monitoring anyways. And doesn't moving ports also kill that junk traffic?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anybody know if this is better than fail2ban?

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't say better. More of a lighter weight alternative. Fail2ban can do lots of stuff. You can define fail2ban rules for any service that writes login failures to a log file. Sshguard, on the other hand, endeavors only to monitor ssh. This makes it more focused, and therefore smaller.

Whether this is "better", depends on what you need. I don't know about your systems, but I use fail2ban for protecting several different administrative systems, so I'd still need it. Thus, I won't be switching. However, if you only need SSH monitoring, this is worth a close look.</comment></comment>


Mastercard to Hold Shareholder Vote That Could Cut Off Payments to the Far-Right - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/mastercard-activists-cut-off-donations-far-right <comment><USER2> If a bakery's not allowed to refuse cake-baking services because the cake is going to a gay couple getting married, Mastercard shouldn't be allowed to refuse payment services to a political speaker because the speaker says that Islam is bad.

Either allow them both, or forbid them both. If you allow one, but forbid the other, your policies are nothing more than thinly disguised attempts to use the law to attack people with different political beliefs.

Arguably, a _tougher_ standard should be applied to decide to whom Mastercard is allowed to refuse service, because there are a lot fewer alternatives to Mastercard than there are to the corner cake shop.

<comment><USER3> Firstly, on the facts: The bakery that refused the gay couple actually won the supreme court case.

Secondly, in your example you're comparing a protected class with a non- protected class.

Thirdly, let's do away with the idea that government is apolitical. There are things that the government makes value judgements about, that's not a bad thing. The government can decide that some groups deserve protection more than others - for example, that being Gay is a part of who you are, whereas voicing particular political views is a choice.

<comment><USER4> > The government can decide that some groups deserve protection more than > others - for example, that being Gay is a part of who you are, whereas > voicing particular political views is a choice.

Indeed, a government could in theory do this. A government could refuse to take action when banks refuse to accept customers with particular political views. A government could allow "redlining" housing practices against people with particular political views. A government could cut off police services to people with particular political views. Barring legal and constitutional restrictions (which these days are very "fluid") a government can do almost whatever it wants to do until it meets pushback from its power brokers.

Just because this _could_ happen, doesn't mean it _should_. Modern civil society is based on the notion that non-criminals are entitled to some degree of participation in society, even if they are disliked. If you take away that foundation, society will quickly become paralyzed by violence. I personally would like to live at least a few more decades, so I'm not too eager to see where that road takes us.

<comment><USER5> "Indeed, a government could in theory do this. A government could refuse to take action when banks refuse to accept customers with particular political views. A government could allow "redlining" housing practices against people with particular political views. A government could cut off police services to people with particular political views."

Rightly or wrongly, a lot of people perceive the complainants here as being the sort of people who like to call this the free market when it happens to others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is an attempt to undermine the constitution and extrajudicially violate the human right of free association for political ends. Any pseudo arguments of "the free market" are completely irrelevant in a financial system legally monopolized by a single institution (the federal reserve) and regulated and controlled to the degree the US system is.

<comment><USER7> Are you arguing that this is unconstitutional because MasterCard faces financial regulations and is therefore equivalent to the government under constitutional law?

That's one hell of a stretch.

<comment><USER6> Yes, Mastercard and nearly the entire financial industry is effectively a government program. If your industry is based on a legislative cartel (monopoly federal reserve feed monopoly big-banks feed monopoly payment networks), you're already unaccountable to market forces. If that same industry can count on the taxpayer to bail them out when their incompetence uproots the entire financial system, they are morally equivalent to a government institution. Mastercard and all other monopolistic financial institutions should be forced to uphold the Bill of Rights so long as they benefit from this level of government privilege.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "This weapon we're developing — it will only be used on bad guys, right?"

</comment><comment><USER9> Alternative title: US multinational considers interfering with EU elections by blocking funds to disfavored groups.

<comment><USER10> So should they also be required to support the IRA?

<comment><USER11> Payment networks are utilities and should be regulated as such. You should never be able to block a legitimate payment (as a corporate entity) that isn't associated with illegal activity.

<comment><USER7> Hadn't considered this before, but it's a good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In Canada we have a fairly modern constitution (it's only 40-ish years old, very new, comparably). It starts out with 'freedom conscience, religion and association' etc..

This is because historically, the #1 thing by far that authoritarians are concerned with is stomping out the opposition. People 'gathering' to discuss 'political ideas' that challenge the status quo are really why the KGB etc. existed. Most armies in the world exist to suppress their own people (FYI it's why the US Army cannot be 'deployed' on US soil).

In that context, it's a very, very dangerous thing to start blocking people from the financial system for political views.

Yes, we can block Nazis and ISIS. FYI I still don't know why we allow Communists to exist after the reality of the last century, but hey, they don't get many votes so there's that.

But this is pragmatically a very, very slippery slope. The slipperiest of all ropes.

The bar for financial transactions is much higher than for Twitter and FB.

This kind of stuff could blow up into a pop culture war, where every corporation and every teenager with an Instagram account will be calling for banning this or that for whatever reason. It's doubly hard when everyone thinks they are acting for the 'social good'.

Let's actually try to be tolerant here.

<comment><USER5> "In that context, it's a very, very dangerous thing to start blocking people from the financial system for political views."

We aren't "starting". Recall all of the countries that have had sanctions placed on them, such as Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Russia, etc.

<comment><USER12> Those are nations, not citizens. Nation states don't get constitutional protections.

Russia invaded parts of Ukraine, is actively trying to take over the governments in the Baltic states, and is directly interfering in the elections of democracies. What kind of punishment do you think we'd give a person who did that? It would be more than a 'ban' from Mastercard, it would be more like life in prison or possibly execution.

<comment><USER5> "Those are nations, not citizens"

All countries are made up of their citizens. I'm reminded of Mitt Romney's statement that corporations are people...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It should also apply to far-left.

</comment><comment><USER14> Now that everyone and their grandma is labeled "far right" unless they are a registered Democrat or Antifa member, I guess we'd better start implementing tactical and strategic defenses.

I'm a libertarian and I'm labeled "far right". If that's a harbinger of the future, get ready for it to be your turn — unless you swear fealty to your local leftist overlord, you'll be "re-educated" with a bout of starvation or freezing on a park bench.

Is that the future we really want?

</comment><comment><USER15> Let them do it, I say. I'm pretty sure that conservatives would en-mass boycott Mastercard, similar to the backlash that Nike experienced.

</comment><comment><USER10> About time</comment>


Ask HN: Most Important Skills for Children? - <AUTHOR> In your opinion what are the most important skills for young children to develop?<p>How would you go about teaching these? <comment><USER2> "Grit" \- [https://www.vox.com/2014/10/9/6835197/grit-kipp- noncognitive...](https://www.vox.com/2014/10/9/6835197/grit-kipp-noncognitive- skills-duckworth-teaching)

"Social Skills" \- [http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2015.3...](http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302630)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd say having a good imagination. Most other skill can be learned in adulthood, but there's nothing like having a child imagination.

</comment><comment><USER4> Reading. One of the main things here is to read to them.

Kindness/empathy. I'm not sure how to teach it, though...</comment>


Google China censored search engine - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/google-china-censored-search-engine-2/ <comment><AUTHOR> _Google has been forced to shut down a data analysis system it was using to develop a censored search engine for China after members of the company's privacy team raised internal complaints that it had been kept secret from them, The Intercept has learned._</comment>


Far from the spotlight, a Boeing partner feels the heat - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/business/boeing-737-max-collins.html <comment><USER2> > In 1998, Boeing executives summoned Mr. Jones to Seattle, he later recalled > in a speech, and made clear that, to get more of Boeing's business, Collins > would have to cut prices dramatically. In response, Collins introduced what > it called "lean electronics," its take on a belt-tightening philosophy > popularized by Toyota. Collins reorganized business units and retrained > managers, with an eye toward efficiency and speed. It pushed its suppliers > to do the same, and established partnerships with companies such as HCL > Technologies, which provides outsourced, lower-cost engineering services > from India.

What a surprise. Critical Software is outsourced as a cost-saving measure and results in critical software bugs.

<comment><USER3> The real surprise is that you can outsource a bunch of software engineering and then you find that the guys who killed people with their bugs were the domestic software engineers.

<comment><USER4> < One former Collins engineer said in an interview the MCAS design should have raised concerns at the aerospace company because it relied on just one sensor. "This kind of design is a no-go" >

I trust NTSB is taking a look at the basic design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Archived link: [http://web.archive.org/web/20191107195004/https://www.nytime...](http://web.archive.org/web/20191107195004/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/business/boeing-737-max- collins.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> More pieces on this.

[https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2018/11/11/boeing-737-cras...](https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2018/11/11/boeing-737-crash- is-first-mass-killing-by-software/)

[https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2019/04/08/boeing-737-max-...](https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2019/04/08/boeing-737-max- crash-and-the-rejection-of-ridiculous-data/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19627490](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19627490)</comment>


Ask HN: What would you consider "too short" and "too long" to stay at a job? - <AUTHOR> So I recently moved to the Bay area and started a position about ten months ago in the area of data science and ML. It's all right, but was always meant to be a stepping stone to something bigger, better, and more aligned with my intellectual interests. In recent weeks, I'm finding those roles and have started getting offers for in person interviews in other parts of the country. Given this back store, I was wondering what many of you thought about what is "too short" and "too long" to stay at a position. <comment><USER2> I think that depending on your background, experience and ambitions, your mileage may vary.

All in all, I think that less than a year is too short. Less than a year will mean that you may not have learnt enough at the position you were holding.

As for too long, I'd say 7 years. Starting at the same (or similar) position the same company will mean that you've become too specialised, especially in the way you do things and you'll have a hard time adapting to a new company, environment, team etc...

Of course these can vary if you're particularly active in side projects or communities that will increase your experience, and thus, value.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unless you have a consistent history of job hopping, I don't think leaving one job early is an issue. If another offer is compelling, you should take it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Too short: I still have to learn something at that company that I could use for my own projects.

Too long: There is nothing else to learn at that company.

</comment><comment><USER5> too short: less than a year Too long: longer than 5 years</comment>


Details Dumped from Tear Gas Manufacturers - <AUTHOR> http://warpolrelease.bitbucket.org <comment><USER2> Wow, I had no idea that tear-gas is a chemical weapon. Banned from being used in warfare, but A-OK to be used on your own populace? Just, wow.

<comment><USER3> Same with Hollow-point bullets. Legal for Police to use but illegal in war: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow- point_bullet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow-point_bullet)

> Despite the ban on military use, hollow-point bullets are one of the most > common types of bullets used by civilians and police,[4] which is due > largely to the reduced risk of bystanders being hit by over-penetrating or > ricocheted bullets, and the increased speed of incapacitation.

<comment><USER4> Heh, crazy. In the Netherlands there's now a discussion flaring up again about what looks like an assassination by the Dutch army of a group of Moluccan hijackers looking to bring independence for their people (part of Dutch colony Indonesia shifting towards independence).

One salient fact that arose recently is the use of hollow point bullets.

Why is this controversial? Because for incapacitation, not assassination, regular bullets would apparently have been more effective. (and of course, an order for such an assassination would've been extremely controversial, in fact illegal)

Pretty crazy to think such hollow points are standard issue in some places.

<comment><USER5> " _Because for incapacitation, not assassination, regular bullets would apparently have been more effective._ "

Absolutely and totally false.

At the most fundamental level, you want the bullets to dump their energy in the target body. "Regular", as in Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) bullets are smooth and slippery, and more readily pass through a body (and are more likely to cause greater harm to anyone behind).

Hollow point bullets, if you're lucky, expand (which uses up some energy), and that larger bullet does more damage in its passage (also using up more of its energy).

Here's the key question you're implicitly asking: do you want to stop or kill the target? Per the above, unless you get a lucky hit on the central nervous system (CNS), people who get shot stop because they don't want to get shot again (perhaps 1/2 of the criminals shot in the US), the rest when they've lost enough blood, which bigger wound channels, destroying more tissue, do a better job of.

If you just want to kill someone, pump a lot of holes in them all the way through, for which FMJ is best. It'll be much harder for anyone to patch them up before they die of blood loss.

I put it as a simple law: lethality scales with number of hits, stopping power with the diameter of the bullet.

Caveat: if you don't luck out with a CNS hit or convincing the target he doesn't want to get shot again, there's a rather thin line between causing him to lose enough blood to stop fighting, and losing enough to die. But he still has a better chance to survive the former, and you and the other good guys have a better chance of surviving because you took him out of the fight faster.

<comment><USER6> Just out of curiosity, and not because I want to single you out as a representative of your species, but, a lot of firearms enthusiasts share some common traits, and one of the more problematic ones is the obvious fallacy that there are " _good guys_ " and then there are " _bad guys_ ", and that only the " _good guys_ " are well-informed about proper weapons handling procedures, and that's because they're focused on " _saving lives_ ".

Another frequently displayed characteristic is to become pedantic about the technical aspects of gun specifications, and the precise language and acronyms surrounding tactics for close-quarter battles, or indirect fire trajectories or... whatever.

Do you guys realize the absurd cognitive dissonance of propping yourselves up with the obvious fallacy of the " _good guys versus bad guys_ " routine, especially when you stand it up next to an appeal to authority through opaque vocabulary?

It may feel like you're winning the argument, but some of us are quick to see through this repetitive display that so many of you cling to, when arguing your point in favor of things like helping people bleed out faster, because we're trying to " _save lives_ " here.

<comment><USER7> None of that post talks about good and bad guys.

None of that post gets picky about terminology or tactics.

It's just a description of how different types of bullet hurt people in different ways.

You're, uh, a little bit _too_ quick to jump on whatever you think you're jumping on.

<comment><USER5> Indeed; the curiously named "atavistic" seems to be lumping me into a "species" (?) of humans I've never even heard of. Which I grant is possible, I'm a Gun Culture 1.0 type by upbringing (e.g. hunting and bulls-eye target shooting, even lettered in that in high school to my amazement) who since ... high school or thereabouts became an early Gun Culture 2.0 type (e.g. self- defense and sports based on that like IDPA and 3 Gun competitions (which I might consider competing in if not for a bad knee)), but there are so many gun subcultures in the US I might not have heard of the one he's referring to. Or know anything about, like the perennially persecuted Pennsylvania pigeon shooters. (But feel free to ask me how good moose minute steaks are. :-)

As far as good and bad guys, we might take it as axiomatic that a shooter considers himself to be a good guy and his targets as bad guys (even if only because he fears they could identify him after the crime), and therefore is at least somewhat interested in "terminal ballistics". I tried to keep it value neutral precisely because I wanted to focus on " _how different types of bullet hurt people in different ways._ "

Needless to say, don't get me talking on "opaque vocabulary" unless you have a desire to learn about all this and can use a glossary of jargon like "permanent crush cavity", "hydro-static shock", etc. before diving into the literature. But I hope I avoided that when talking to the general HN audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Repository unavailable". I wonder what was in it.

</comment><comment><USER9> FWIW, direct link to cached version of gopresto page: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:K6ckHm8...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:K6ckHm8Zg7gJ:warpolrelease.bitbucket.org/gopresto.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a)

here's the link the gopresto dump, from above

[http://rghost.net/private/58630972/989ff79551ac37019982d8117...](http://rghost.net/private/58630972/989ff79551ac37019982d81177050c64?r=113)

Missed cs_dump.txt though.

</comment><comment><USER10> As a casual reviewer, I'm skeptical of the quality of the GoPresto dataset in particular. Is it possible that this includes customers of a non-defense company with the same owner, for example?

Some googling and local knowledge turns up a number of people in there who I am quite confident are in no position to be purchasing teargas. I know they said there was some bogus data, but I'm talking >50% suspect entries.

The other dataset looks perfectly good, though. Addresses/emails almost 100% map to agencies or private security forces.

</comment><comment><USER11> Has anyone given any thought to what the Police will use for riot control if tear gas is banned? I have been on the receiving end of Tear Gas. It was not a pleasant experience . However after about an hour I was back on my feet and good to go. As much as I didn't care for the tear gas, it would still cause less damage to a protester to get gassed than getting hit by a rubber bullet or a police baton.

</comment><comment><USER12> The repository is now down - here is a snapshot from the Wayback Machine:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20141020203759/http://warpolrele...](https://web.archive.org/web/20141020203759/http://warpolrelease.bitbucket.org/)

Whether this is due to pressure or force from some authority or the author simply changing his mind remains to be seen. Like another commenter said, I have a sneaking suspicion that there will not be a long-lived "more to come" section if it's down in the first 4 hours.

</comment><comment><USER13> 3 hours on HN and still not removed from bitbucket by some authority? I'm a bit surprised, because while the protest itself is nothing unusual given the approach they chose — I mean breaking doors, disclosing sensitive information, leave aside that it's not barbershops they are picking on, it's supposedly serious (I didn't find much about them, so i don't know for sure), close-to- military companies — it seems like something that won't be ignored. So, sadly, "more to come" part will stay empty, I believe.

</comment><comment><USER14> 404.

</comment><comment><USER15> I mean cool story bro but wat about the more-than-less-than-lethal weapons manufacturers?</comment>


TIL: Hundreds of software developers needed in Remote, OR USA - <AUTHOR> For a long time i didn't understand why lot of job offers required you to work Remotely OR in USA. Isn't USA also part of remote? Actually OR stands for Oregon and people use this location because job sites do not offer options a remote. <comment><USER2> Uh... there are most certainly not hundreds of software jobs in Remote, OR. That would be a place barely more than a wide spot in the road. Entirely befitting of its name, it is left of nowhere. I have no doubt it lacks ANY form of high speed internet access.

The read on these offers should be you could work offshore or domestically.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really like the idea of a "TIL" category in "ask", just like this. Nice work.</comment>


Ask HN: What do these commit logs tell about the team? - <AUTHOR> https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/sriram-random/Screen+Shot+2016-03-15+at+12.24.00+am.png <comment><USER2> There are about 4 people working on the project for various periods of time? I'd pretty much refuse to draw any more serious conclusions based on that small data set. Everything seems pretty average.

Is there some conclusion you're fishing for?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really fishing. Just trying to get multiple perspectives on whether commit logs, without names, would make sense, to start with.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone using Python's static typing in a large project? - <AUTHOR> I've read quite a lot about mypy and optional static typing in Python, and was wondering if there are any large and successful projects that use it? If you're currently using it, I'd love to hear some impressions. <comment><USER2> Dropbox and Instagram use mypy/typing actively. Also among open-source: [https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant](https://github.com/home- assistant/home-assistant) [https://github.com/mitmproxy/mitmproxy](https://github.com/mitmproxy/mitmproxy) [https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx](https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx)

I would say the opposite, it is not very useful for small projects.

</comment><comment><USER3> Zulip's post on their experience with mypy got some discussion last year.

221 comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12703008](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12703008)

Blog post: [http://blog.zulip.org/2016/10/13/static-types-in-python- oh-m...](http://blog.zulip.org/2016/10/13/static-types-in-python-oh-mypy/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm familiar with their post, and it's great that their server code is available on Github [1]. Was hoping to find more projects using it.

[1] [https://forms.mvs.co.il/formally/LoginDocSign.aspx?ID=4491b7...](https://forms.mvs.co.il/formally/LoginDocSign.aspx?ID=4491b7a6-874a-4c82-835b-e9ddadd9e148)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google internally uses pytype, which is similar to mypy, and while not globally used, is used on across a large number of files.</comment>


Why We Shut Newstilt Down - <AUTHOR> http://blog.paulbiggar.com/archive/why-we-shut-newstilt-down/ <comment><USER3> "There was a point when I was over in Cambridge with Nathan and the other developer, and I noticed that the developer wasn't working on a Sunday... If your first employee doesn't love what you do, doesn't wake up each morning dying to work on HIS product, you have likely chosen poorly, and that's exactly what we did."

I left a company before because I was being pressured to work at least 12 hours a day plus weekends. (I was averaging about 10 hours a day & worked about 4-6 hours on weekends).

I asked the CEO that he should motivate me. He said that I didn't need to since I was already getting paid a lot of money. I gave my two-weeks notice the next day.

It's possible that you hired the person you want for your company but you were not motivating him enough to work long hours.

<comment><USER4> Maybe I'm just too European. But everybody deserves a day off once a week.

Developers (anyone really) that are too tired to think are useless to a company. Let people get their rest and their time spent working will be much more productive.

Isn't there a book about this? Myth of the man month or something like that?

<comment><USER5> It's not that you demand every working moment of your employees time, it's that you need it.

One of the things you're quickly taught is that you do everything you can to ensure the success of your startup. You need employees with the same priorities and intrinsic motivation as you have, or else you're less likely to succeed.

<comment><USER5> I think I've given the wrong impression here. Everyone is disagreeing, and probably rightly for how I've phrased it, so let me try again.

I'm not saying that I believe our employee was lazy because he refused to work Sundays. I feel that we hired someone who wasn't sold on the whole startup thing, and treated an early stage startup as if it were a regular job.

I recall a talk from an early Googler, who worked 100 hour weeks for the first five years. Startups need dedication, not because of some kind of culture, or because some exec says so, but because everything is constantly falling apart and it always needs work. You could surely do them differently (perhaps a low- stress startup), but that is another animal altogether.

So the point is you need someone intrinsically motivated to make the startup succeed. Anyone else is the wrong fit.

<comment><USER6> I dont understand you are complaining that your EMPLOYEE isnt doing 100hours weeks when at the same time you, the CO-FOUNDER, were in "honeymoon for most of May" [1] ???? WTF!

[1][http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=185999](http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=185999)

<comment><USER7> Of all the things pointed out in the article, this is the one single thing that I could not see a reasonable defense to, and he didn't even mention this as one of the problems!

When a launch is imminent and you are a CO-FOUNDER, and you take a vacation, this is grossly irresponsible. The whole "life happens" comment he uses as a minor defense to it, well....guess what? Work is a part of life too! We juggle work, home, family, friends, hobbies, etc etc all the time, and it's up to us to be responsible on deciding which gets priority at any given time. While one aspect is more important to each of us, there will always be times when something trumps it, regardless of category. And well, a launch of your business compared to going on a honeymoon? Yes, absolutely that trumps it!

A honeymoon can be postponed. I've had many friends that postponed it an entire year! Sorry, I simply cannot find justification for this single act alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _And finally, they didn't expect a cent back, telling us to give all the money back to our later investors. Not once in my whole time at YC did I believe that they valued their investment more than they valued us, and they were OK with us closing down. YC is a class act._

Personally I find this to be one of the best endorsements of YC that I've read. How people treat you when things don't work out is really, really important.

</comment><comment><USER9> "I noticed that the developer wasn't working on a Sunday"

There are many obvious reasons why this company failed, and I'm surprised that YC gave them any money, but that statement jumped out as a huge red flag of "bad founder". If you think you _need_ 80+ hour weeks, or _need_ to work 6 days a week, never mind 7, you are already failing. Not only are you burning your people out, you're setting a bad example and demonstrating that your business is not viable.

Your people should be working normal hours from day 1. Save the extra hours for emergencies, or big (big as in couple times a year at most) releases or deadlines. If they want to tinker from home or spend a Saturday morning writing an email with ideas, that's when you know you've engaged them, but buying into the "we run on midnight oil" story of startups is just plain not smart.

<comment><USER10> Couldn't agree more strongly. _Of course_ in a startup you'll occasionally put in extra hours (I once spent 60 hours straight writing copy for a deadline), but if you think this should be the norm, then what the hell are you supposed to do when there's a _real_ emergency??

Smart dudes who go four-wheeling in the mud only turn on the four-wheel-drive when they get stuck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 2 other points he didn't grasp:

1) I had no idea NewsTilt existed. I make my living on the internet. I should have known about it.

2) The name suggests to me that they will put a slant on the news. I like unbiased news, and most other people at least pretend to. Also, 'tilt' is slang for 'fail'. That doesn't come to mind immediately from the name, but the association with the word is there subconsciously.

<comment><USER5> The major problem is 1). We did not do well at publicizing either ourselves or our journalists.

People brought up 2) a lot, but I don't feel it was as bug a problem as almost anything else I put in the post. Our major competitor was called "true/slant", and it did they little harm (but then they built their brand around that, so it's a little different).

<comment><USER12> I have several friends who were writing for True/Slant when you guys launched. They all were aware and wanted you guys to drop dead as they had already gambled with this other j-startup and now there was a second one casting doubt on their original choice.

Of course 5 months later, both projects are dead and gone under less than ideal circumstances.

I actually was invited to and attended a planning meeting for True/Slant's Chicago people. They asked me to be there so I could explain how they could use Windy Citizen to promote their stuff. They seemed like good people, but I suspect their content was too earnest to really make a go of it. They had the same problem you did:

Without naked women, it's pretty hard to build eyeballs on the web.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Getting traffic is really really difficult. We completely underestimated how difficult it would be, largely because I'd never had a problem with it in the past."

For anyone else building a startup without a concrete plan to get traffic, remember this post. Getting traffic will ALWAYS take more time and money than you think. The "if we build it they will come" mentality is a recipe for failure.

<comment><USER14> This a thousand times. I understand that not all traffic is created equally, but there's no value in no traffic. Technology problems can be surmounted. Solving the traffic problem is hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Pretty thorough post-mortem.

 _"we weren't intrinsically motivated by news and journalism"_

This stands out among the numerous issues the company had. If you aren't passionate about something but still want to do it, make sure it's very easy and won't take up too much of your time. That wasn't the case with NewsTilt.

<comment><USER16> They built a product that they didn't use. His entire post-mortem could have been that one sentence and it still would've taught a ton of entrepreneurs a great lesson.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Did either of the founders have experience in the news industry before starting the company? From a brief search, it doesn't look like it. And from the way he's writing about journalists it sure doesn't sound like it either.

I'd say that that doomed the company from the start.

Doing a journalism startup just doesn't seem like a good idea if you have no understanding or experience of how doing journalism works.

<comment><USER5> Neither of us did, no. Actually, we didn't start a journalism startup, we were doing a Disqus clone for newspapers. We migrated to the NewsTilt idea after Sequoia told us they'd never fund something relying on newspapers for success.

I see why you would think needing journalism experience is important. Of all the errors we made, I don't find that to be a significant one, hence not really mentioning it in the retrospective. I personally still believe that journalism is too set in its ways to save itself, and that it's white knight will come from outside it.

<comment><USER18> I once worked on a multi million $ ecommerce platform startup where none of the founders had experience with ecommerce or retail at all. The story is familiar - they blew resources on building the MVP product assuming they knew all they needed and did a huge successful launch with big name sellers seeding the marketplace. But the numbers dropped off and the sellers became more difficult to retain. They learned some hard hard lessons with a $1m product build that fell flat on its face - for primarily reasons that were completely obvious to anyone in retail. The team was distributed across continents and they couldn't iterate very fast at all. They wasted the rest of their cycles and investor cash fixing these problems until they went broke and collapsed. It is sadly a pretty common scenario

Much of what you cite as an error is the direct result of not having understood journalism out the gate. It sounds like you spent a lot of your early resources trying to understand journalists and the news reader audience - after you built the product. Had you known more about the field when you began, how many of your core problems would have been solved in the design phase?

<comment><USER19> On the flip side, my two partners and I started up an e-commerce platform and did fairly well. Started on less than a quarter-million in 2003, and we switched ideas the first several months from one commerce idea to another. We had no idea what we were doing, learning while we went along. It required my partners saying "yes" to customers, me saying "no" to my partners, and a lot of back and forth. But it worked, and was a REALLY good system and service.

Unfortunately, it all went downhill 4 years later when backstabbing wenches pull the rug out from beneath us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Thank you for the intensely personal and heartfelt postmortem. It seems like everyone else in this thread is knocking you guys, but I'm glad to be able to learn from your failures.

I was sad to see you guys fold. I really liked your idea.

</comment><comment><USER21> 1\. It's okay to fail; if you never fail, you probably never try.

2\. If I were you, I'd probably try to resolve the problems instead of closing the project. Things like facebook login not working on subdomains should not be show-stoppers, really. Find a workaround, I dunno, proxy login or anything.

3\. Early releases are good, but you have to provide minimum viable product.

4\. I didn't know a thing about newstilt till today which means you had some marketing problems.

5\. Don't listen to the guys counting other people's money :) There's always some risk involved in startups, every investor knows that.

6\. Probably you had to do some better research before launch. This way you'd know all about your readers.

7\. As a developer I'm not with ya on those "should work at sunday" parts.

My 2 c.

</comment><comment><USER22> I stopped reading after this...

"None of these problems should have been unassailable, which leads us to why NewsLabs failed as a company:

         * Nathan and I had major communication problems,
         * we weren't intrinsically motivated by news and journalism,
         * making a new product required changes we could not make,
         * our motivation to make a successful company got destroyed by all of the above.

Overall, the most important of these are that Nathan and I had difficulty communicating in a way which would allow us save the company, and that this really drained out motivation."

Maybe you should figure this shit out before you take someone's hard earned money.

<comment><USER5> > Maybe you should figure this shit out before you take someone's hard earned > money.

If we could have anticipated our mistakes, we wouldn't have made them.

<comment><USER3> Paul,

I'm curious. How long have you known each other before you became cofounders?

<comment><USER5> Not terribly well. We had met on two occasions before, and had very much clicked on both a personal and technical level. But obviously that's not enough to survive the stressful environment that is a web startup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So, they decided to shut down after only two months, and if I understand correctly, during the first month (May) one of the co-founders was almost completely in absentia, according to [http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=185999](http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=185999) ?

</comment><comment><USER24> My law of girlfriends and employers: You learn more about them when you leave than at any other time. This speaks highly of YC.

</comment><comment><USER25> "Motivation" is mentioned several times.

Reminds me of that quote, "Courage is not the absence of fear, but the overcoming of it."

Maybe you could say, "Success does not come from motivation, but from overcoming the lack of it."

</comment><comment><USER12> This is a great, insanely useful, honest, and detailed autopsy on a startup. Thank you for writing it, Paul. You've done a lot of people a valuable service in sharing this information and your experiences.

I have to admit, a small piece of me is dancing a little jig, not at their demise, but because they ran into the same walls and hurdles I ran when I started WindyCitizen two years ago. I can't tell you how cathartic it is to read all this stuff. So much truth here.

Example: Working with journalists is tough because almost all of them overvalue their work to an extreme degree, especially older ones who wrote for print. Longtime print journalists were paid solid salaries to fill space in between ads in their papers. They figured if the paper's circulation was X, that a good portion of X was reading their stuff. In fact, it's quite possible no one was reading their stuff and their value wasn't in producing good journalism so much as it was in being able to write something vaguely coherent reliably and safely to fill up space between ads.

Try explaining THAT to an old hand print journalist. Those are fighting words.

But young journalists today understand this. They know that you're only as good as your audience so they're out building them. Check out my friend Tracy Swartz: <http://twitter.com/tracyswartz> She covers transit for the Chicago Tribune's commuter paper and is a rock solid reporter. I respect her work very much, but moreso I respect how aggressive she is in building a real following and brand around her work so that no matter where she goes after this job, she's got an audience to take with her. Older journalists don't get that. They were used to thinking the audience just magically appeared when they committed an act of journalism.

Anyhow, reading that stuff was like having a weight lifted off my shoulders. Thanks.

Background: My original idea (fresh out of journalism school) was to do a Huffington Post for Chicago. I was doing it solo and sans funding however. I was able to sign up about 20 writers, and they were the good hungry ones who want to stir stuff up, but as a solo founder I wasn't able to recruit writers, direct them, edit their stuff, post the stories (we went with Drupal and the posting ui is really terrible so our writers would e-mail me their stories), promote the stories to get eyeballs on them, then find advertisers and sell ads to them....etc etc

It just was a no-go. So after 8 months of that, I replaced our front page with a Digg knock-off and invited our readers and bloggers to start sharing and voting for their favorite local stories. Traffic slowly picked up to where we were hitting 100k uniques/month, I found someone to work on ad sales, and we eventually reached a shaky ramen profitability as a local Digg-clone with often-spotty tech.

Through this all though, a handful of our writers kept blogging and over the last year we have a few who've managed to build small but regular audiences for their stuff.

Two years later, we're starting to recruit writers and bloggers again and its fun to watch.

It took 24 months longer than I expected and there's still lots to happen, but Windy Citizen is definitely a worthwhile read for a certain segment of Chicago due to the ingenuity of our writers and community members.

Anywho, I'm sorry to hear NewsTilt didn't work out but thank you for your honesty and candor in sharing this. Cheers.

<comment><USER26> For convenience, here's the Windy Citizen link: <http://www.windycitizen.com/>

Edit: Fixed site name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I can see 37 signals writing a big fat "told ya so" post about this soon.

</comment><comment><USER28> So I guess that this is the best coverage these guys have had so far as I'd never heard about the site before.

I know nothing about the history, but what about a little patience?

</comment><comment><USER29> Article could have used a bit more explanation of what newstilt was, given that (a) I'd never heard of it and (b) it's been shut down so I can't look at it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Thanks for writing this detailed postmortem!

The entire story, though, can really be distilled into one idea: expectation settings.

You always want to under-promise and over-deliver, but it sounds like, in multiple domains, the Newstilt team did just the opposite. They promised a lot to their writers, to their investors, to each other. This happened in both obvious and subtle ways.

What's the problem with the wrong expectation settings?

Where to begin... First of all, it is human nature to raise expectations. You're afraid investors won't invest, developers won't work for you, journalists won't contribute to your site, your co-founder won't carry on: so you raise expectations.

The critical dynamic that screws everything up, though, IMHO, is that _inflated expectations attract the wrong types of people_. That's the killer.

Paul provided many examples of this. Over-promising to journalists attracted the wrong types of journalists; over-promising to users attracted the wrong types of users; over-promising to potential employees attracted the wrong hire.

If there's one lesson to takeaway from Paul's story it's: under-promise and over-deliver.

Start simply. Don't worry about being too simple. Just be honest, so you attract the right people at the right time.

</comment><comment><USER31> "Lesson: Deeply care about what you're working on"

This was one of the lessons-learned that resonated with me. My husband and I lacked passion for the first startup we co-founded back in the late 1990s and although we were profitable and did sell the business, I know that had we cared deeply about it we would have been 100x more successful. When you care deeply about something you do all the 'little' things that make ALL the difference.

More generally, I would like to thank Paul for his post. In fact, it may just be mandatory reading for anyone starting or planning to start a business. Even if you don't agree with Paul's assessment of NewsTilt's demise, it makes for a great case study, precisely because it inspires us to think about what went wrong, what should have been done, etc. In fact the combination of the post and this thread is precisely the kind of discussion I find so instructive.

</comment><comment><USER32> Online content syndication, aggregation, or publishing schemes tend to see alot of troubles because the founders make the technology the value proposition rather than the content, which is relegated to commodity (at best) status.

I mean, look at how low an opinion brandnewlow (haha) has of veteran journalists. "Working with journalists is tough because almost all of them overvalue their work to an extreme degree". Oh, but I'm sure "digg knockoff + Chicago" is an earth-shattering technology well worth its price in Flooz.

As soon as you realize doing a content play based on writing is very similar to any other creative industry like movies, TV, or music, the sooner you'll respect the people who write for a living. They're not just replaceable crotchety cogs that make your content engine move. They're your sole source of revenue (if you do make an money at all).

Sincerely, A writer.

<comment><USER12> Good points, but I'm being misread in a few places to make your points.

My point wasn't that writers don't have value, but that veteran journalists have an understanding of their value that doesn't sync up with how their output is valued in the context of today's media world.

I have an extremely high opinion of veteran journalists. I went into debt so I could attend graduate journalism school and learn at their feet for a year.

However, my great respect for their skills as researchers and reporters does not change my belief that they have an overinflated idea of the value of the actual product they were putting out with those skills. Great content has limited value unless you have the ability to distribute it to a lot of people. Great veteran journalists can make wonderful stuff but lack the ability to put it in front of a lot of people.

Sincerely, A fellow writer. Glad to see more of us on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Lesson: If you think you should build it, not buy it, you're wrong"

That's bad advice IMHO. There is far more value to building than buying - <USER2> amount you learn, and the extra optimization you can put in there.

If you have the luxury of being able to build it yourself, do.

<comment><USER5> I suppose to put it another way, you almost certainly do not have the luxury of being able to build it yourself.

<comment><USER33> Well, anecdotally, I did. I built a minimum viable product as a 'side project'. I had money to run it for a year before I needed to monetize. It worked for me. It means I use 1/10th the number of machines/bandwidth of one of my competitors.

I agree though, in your circumstance it was probably the wrong approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I tried to get involved in this early on, but I was quickly turned off by the way the project was being run: it felt like the founders were promising a vague end goal and trying to make too many groups of people happy.

[http://groups.google.com/group/newslabs- qa/browse_thread/thr...](http://groups.google.com/group/newslabs- qa/browse_thread/thread/33881e2ab3d629be)

Kudos for writing all of this down, Paul. Next time, stick to your guns and do the simplest thing that works!

</comment><comment><USER35> That's too bad. Thanks for the honest insight, and best of luck on your next ventures.

</comment><comment><USER36> You gave up too soon. It take much longer to solve any marketplace (chicken- egg) problem

</comment><comment><USER37> So, basically an attempt to racket 20% off the money earned by other people failed. Nice try.

<comment><USER38> 80% to the author is a hell of a lot better deal than any traditional corporation will give.

<comment><USER17> Yes, but at the traditional corporation it'll be a smaller percentage of a much bigger pie.

<comment><USER38> No, at a traditional corporation the author draws a fixed salary no matter how big the pie gets.

<comment><USER17> Sure, but so far that fixed salary has been a lot more than what a writer online would be getting if paid as a percentage.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How is your experience with Oracle, Postgres and MySQL? - <AUTHOR> This is a follow up to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9702372. How was your experience with these databases, PG, Oracle, MSSQL, MySQL. If you describe with one sentence how do you describe them in one sentence. <comment><USER2> Oracle: Doesn't scale down. Lacks a lot of convenience features (BOOLEAN, DATE, IF (NOT) EXISTS, …). You need a team of DBAs to manage it and have a good relationship them (send birthday cards for their kids, I'm not making this up). You need to have people on your team with a good understanding of Oracle. Then the speed and information you can get out of it is amazing — given your corporate structure gives you access to a good disk subsystem.

Support is a waste of time (we have a priority 1 bug open for more than half a year).

11.1g was so buggy that your DBAs would forbid us to go to 12.1c (BETWEEN AND wasn't working correctly).

I just wish they would open source their JDBC driver and accept pull requests.

Scale: about 10 TB, tables with between 500M and 1.5B rows, slow disk subsystem (SAN with about 150k IOP/s)

<comment><USER3> The last time I used Oracle was 8i, but it certainly supported IF (NOT) EXISTS.

I mostly agree with you about scaling down, and culturally Oracle DBAs are big at gatekeeping, but as a fairly junior database developer I was still able to figure out the basics of installing and configuring it, so maybe it's not _that_ bad.

<comment><USER2> I meant IF (NOT) EXISTS for DDL. It exists for DML of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> DBA & PL-SQL/UNIX Developer here. Primary work with Oracle and SQL Server. Also support PG, and MySQL.

SQL Server hands down has the best GUI tools, none of the other DB's can even match this. Lots of information/documentation online. Makes life a lot easier. With Flashback being added to SQL16, it's going to be really hard to beat. Setting up, and maintaining HA options like Mirroring, Clustering, Replication is significantly easier that all the other DB's I've used.

Oracle is great, and also a pain in the ass. Works on any OS...but in my experience works best on Solaris. They really need to improve their tools. If you want to be effective you pretty much have to use the command line, and sql plus. There is nothing wrong with that, and in fact I prefer this method for most things. However, once you get used to SQL Server, it's crazy how much time you save, by having simple tools. Data Grid sucks ass, and is just a pain. They try to push this now, instead of the command line tools, pretty big mistake in my eyes. Oracle also has a lot of new features that are truly awesome. Like Audit Vault, and data masking.

PG is pretty awesome, but most enterprise level applications do not support it. Same issue with MySQL. The learning curve is also steeper for these. I don't believe MySQL, or PG can come close to SQL Server, or Oracle.

</comment><comment><USER5> Longtime Oracle dev/dba. I have been using PG now for over 6 years, and it is my #1 choice for new projects if possible. Oracle beats it in instrumentation and tooling and to me the Oracle RDBMS documentation is more thorough. The implementation of MVCC is radically different and I'm not too keen on vacuuming but it is a necessary evil tradeoff for the benefits in PG's implementation. And above all I can put PG on a box with 40 cores and have dozens of hot standby's for $0 in licensing fees.

</comment><comment><USER6> In my experience MSSQL and Oracle are more or less interchangeable. I have never run across PG running at the same sort of scale as the other two, but it seems to be a contender. Though I would have to agree with breakingcups, PG lacks tooling compared to the other two.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you say little more about what kind of scale are you talking?

<comment><USER6> Not very big, 10s of millions of rows. The biggest Postgres install I have gotten to work with was in the tens of thousands of rows. I am sure Postgres could handle more I just haven't seen it in the wild.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> oracle is great, has lots of great tools, and seems to be pretty solid. It is also ridiculously expensive. I have found Postgres to be essentially equal to it in terms of programmability (triggers, stored procedures) and.. it's free. It keeps getting better.. lots of larger scale startups use it (like instagram), and is essentially eating Oracle.. particularly where Oracle plays best (at the fortune 100 corporate level). Most of my clients have plans to migrate to it, or are actively doing that. I've used Mysql for smaller stuff and it's ok..why use it when you have postgres. The license is better anyway.

Haven't used MSSQL in years, but it's very good (on Windows).

<comment><USER8> Oracle XE is good, free and still pretty good but you are limited to small(ish) amounts of data. You can do most of your testing and dev with it though. There are a number of options such as Standard One which offer pretty cheap licenses for most of the functionality you'd need to compete with Postgres and MSSql.

That said, I've had great experiences with Postres and MSSql too, it's just that I learnt all my core db stuff from Oracle 7 and moved on from there.

I haven't bothered with mysql for some time. I think I'd always go for Postgres in preference.

MSSQL and Oracle have many advantages when working in coporate/enterprise environments and you probably won't have to worry about licensing costs so much then!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Oracle: use it a lot, find PL/SQL an excellent language, wish that it were less expensive.

MSSQL: Use it some, wish that T-SQL had more of the features of PL/SQL, don't mind it.

PostreSQL: Limited experience, like it OK. May yet port some Oracle stuff there.

MySQL: Don't mind it, but don't use it much.

</comment><comment><USER10> PostgreSQL has great language features and has been a stable OLAP platform. Coming from MSSQL, the only feature I miss is query parallelism.

The lack of equivalent feature in MySQL makes it difficult to work with once accustomed to others (OLAP context, not OLTP).

</comment><comment><USER11> PG: Great in theory, virtually no GUI tooling that's up to the task. MSSQL: Excellent, wish it ran on Linux.

<comment><USER12> Have you tried Aqua Data Studio? Its not just for PG - can connect to quite a few different DB types and works really nicely with all of them.

Aqua is commercial software, but pretty inexpensive, and we use it at my company to connect to the different databases we work with.

<comment><USER11> I haven't yet, I might look into that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> MySQL: half-backed, inconsistent, full of quirks and traps PG: My db of choice.

</comment><comment><USER14> I love Oracle XE (Express Edition - Free) and use it regularly for any side projects. Oracle APEX is not bad either.

</comment><comment><USER15> edit: Sorry, I missed the "1 sentence" guideline.

I have a lot of Oracle commentary in my post history, but I would still like to chime in again with a specific case that may be interesting to some people here. I'm totally unaffiliated with Oracle, so if it sounds like a pitch, it's just because I've had a long, positive experience with their technology.

There is absolutely nothing on the market, commercial or OSS, that can touch Oracle Database. If you really take advantage of it, it'll be clear.

I wrote a couple of big financial software applications, and reporting is a huge component. One of the key differentiators in my product vs the competition is that all of the reporting is ad-hoc, whereas theirs is batch. This is important to my customers, because they typically have planning and modeling work to do, and waiting around for batches just won't fly.

There are a few ways to get this kind of ad-hoc reporting experience, but the easiest is by directly issuing queries against the data. For this to be viable, though, you need two things: An expressive data manipulation language and the ability to exercise the hardware.

Oracle is the only database that delivers. Oracle's support for modern SQL and its proprietary extensions (e.g., [1]) are incredibly powerful, but they're expensive CPU-wise. However, Oracle will parallelize these, effectively running a single query over n cores.

Without those features, I'd have been building change monitors, data diffing algorithms, solvers, and all of that stuff to support background partial recomputation. Job runners, queuing, cache invalidation... man, just thinking about all that stuff again makes me realize just how nearly impossible it would have been to get this company off the ground.

Also, a note on pricing: it's expensive if you need these features, and licensing truly is arcane, but their are some pretty good options now. Several others have pointed to Oracle's free and cheap offerings, like XE and SE1, but Oracle is available on RDS with licensing included. You can quite literally amortize the licensing cost by the hour and quit anytime, and it's nothing more than an option when you provision your instance.

All that said, if you really need it, buying a $40k license is an awful lot cheaper than buying a couple $150k engineers to make it work on some other platform.

This has really informed my philosophy, especially when doing things on a startup budget. Get the best tools you can and use the hell out of them for all they're worth. There are thousands of engineer-years behind Oracle, and they've tackled a lot of hard problems for you. It's always a shame when I look at an operation and see people doing suboptimal reimplementations (you did you own materialized view?) because nobody read the docs...

[1] [http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14223/sqlmod...](http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14223/sqlmodel.htm)</comment>


Fractional scaling has landed in GNOME 3.32 (and may make it into Ubuntu 19.04) - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/merge_requests/5 <comment><USER2> Anyone know how this will work in browser and apps like Electron?

All my icons are vectors or fonts so I can scale them proportionally.

I'm still behind the curve on dark mode though..

I saw a reference to a proposed web standard to detect if the user prefers a dark mode but can't find it now.

<comment><AUTHOR> @media (prefers-color-scheme: light|dark|no-preference) { ... }

[https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-5/#descdef-media- prefe...](https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-5/#descdef-media-prefers- color-scheme)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> finally! been waiting forever for this on my WQHD thinkpad with wayland

edit: good post and discussion here [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNOME-3....](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNOME-3.32-Fractional- Scaling)</comment>


Microsoft seeking to avoid climate change lawsuit - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/01/microsoft-joins-group-seeking-to-avoid-climate-change-lawsuit <comment><AUTHOR> How can we persuade stakeholders to take climate change effects serious and work towards a greenhouse gas emission free world? And why is corporate action not en par with actions of corporate owners, e.g. [https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/My-plan-for-fighting- clima...](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/My-plan-for-fighting-climate- change)?</comment>


Early Evidence Shows The Daily a Bust: What This Means for Tablets - <AUTHOR> http://www.i4u.com/45973/early-evidence-shows-daily-bust-what-means-tablets

<comment><USER2> Granted, people like getting things at no/low cost. But it might also be a vote for Murdoch's version of the news? If it's at all like Fox in the US, I can see why net-literati won't touch it.</comment>